Roni Bhakta
Roni Bhakta
Full-stack developer, passionate Open Source developer & co-created Lenny with Internet Archive.
About
I build scalable, open-source systems empowering communities and solving real-world problems, impact-first.
Founder of Zonformat: Zero-overhead notation format cutting LLM token usage by approximately 50 percent versus JSON. Human-readable, lossless. Python and TypeScript libraries with schemas, streaming, validation. Over 99% retrieval accuracy; powers cost-effective GenAI. Repos gaining stars and downloads.
2025 GSoC Fellow turned contract dev at Internet Archive (Nov '25 to Jan '26): Own backend and APIs for Lenny, open-source lending for Library's. Enables affordable e-books, per Aaron Swartz's vision. Rolled OPDS feeds to over multiple beta libraries, CI/CD, observability. Co-created with Internet Archive's Open Library team; maintain pyopds2 library and Lenny monorepo (TurboRepo, TypeScript, React). Advancing secure, decentralized lending.
Stack: Python and FastAPI, MERN and Next.js, Docker and Kubernetes and AWS and Cloudflare, GenAI (LLMs, LangChain, embeddings, RAG) for end-to-end build, ship, ops.
Hiring full-stack for open infra or GenAI? DM @ronibhakta1 on X
Cool places I've worked at
Internet Archive
Open Library Junior Software Developer at Internet Archive
Got hired as a Junior Software Developer at Internet Archive for Open Library team for 2.3 months. Working on maintaining and enhancing the Lenny project, an open-source digital lending system for libraries, work on Open Library Batch Import system & enable Open Library with OPDS(Open Publication Distribution System) feed. Responsibilities include backend development, API design, and collaborating with the Open Library team to ensure seamless integration and functionality. Continuing to contribute to the open-source community while gaining valuable industry experience.
Internet Archive
Maintainer for Lenny Eco-System at Internet Archive & Open Library
After getting selected as a 2025 Internet Archive GSoC Fellow. Also a Maintainer for Lenny project. Contributed to the development of Lenny, an open source lending system for libraries. Responsible for backend architecture, deployment, and API design. Collaborating with ArchiveLabs and Internet Archive community.
Google Summer of Code 2025
GSoC 2025 Contributor at Internet Archive & Open Library Contributor
Selected as a GSoC 2025 Fellow at Internet Archive. Contributing to the development of Lenny, an open source lending system for libraries. Responsible for backend architecture, deployment, and API design. Collaborating with ArchiveLabs and Internet Archive community. This project is a lifetime project, and I am one of the stakeholders in this project. I am also a lifetime project maintainer with the OpenLibrary project lead Michael E. Karpeles (Mek).
Research
Stanford University
Research Participant — AI & OSS Development Study
Selected to participate in Stanford PhD research study on how AI coding tools affect code review and collaboration in open source software development. Contributing to 4 issues in large OSS repositories, submitting PRs, and addressing reviewer feedback.
Open Source
ArchiveLabs
Internet Archive, Open Library Contributor
Contributed to open source projects under Internet Archive, including Open Library, with multiple merged pull requests and active participation in the open source community. Contributed to the development of Lenny, an open source lending system for libraries. Responsible for backend architecture, deployment, and API design. Collaborating with ArchiveLabs and Internet Archive community.
Open Library
Open Library Contributor
Contributed to the development of Open Library, an open source project aimed at creating a web-based library catalog. Worked on improving the user interface and user experience, as well as fixing bugs and implementing new features.
Internet Health Report
Internet Health Report Contributor
Contributed to the Internet Health Report, an open source project that aims to provide insights into the health of the internet. Worked on project called internet-yellow-pages and fixed deprecated keywords in the neo4j queries. Issue: #159
Community & Leadership
Google Developer Groups on campus organiser
Organiser
Founded GDGC AGPIT and led a tech community, organizing 5+ workshops and meetups, impacting 450+ students with hands-on tech exposure to GCP (Google Cloud Platform). Increased student engagement in emerging technologies by 60% through events on API Design, cloud computing, LLMs, FSD, and real-time systems. Collaborated with 3 external institutions to expand networking opportunities for tech enthusiasts.
Microsoft Student Ambassador
Student Ambassador
Founded AGPIT MLSA and led a tech community, organizing 2+ Workshops and In-person meetups, Impacting 260+ Students with hands-on exposure to GIT, GITHUB & AZURE. Increased student engagement in emerging Microsoft technologies by 40% through events on GitOPS, Cloud, LLMs, FSD, Algorithms and Docker. Collaborated with 4 external institutions to expand networking opportunities for tech enthusiasts.
E-Cell, IIT Bombay
E-Cell Campus Ambassador
Served as a Campus Ambassador for E-Cell IIT Bombay, in collaboration with Physics Wallah. Gained access to valuable resources like financial literacy and coding courses, along with internship opportunities. Contributed to E-Cell's success and gained valuable experience, ranking 80 out of 2108 students.
Education
A.G. Patil Institute of Technology
B.Tech, Computer Engineering (Relevant Coursework: Data Structures and Algorithms, Distributed Systems, Full-Stack Web Development, Cloud Computing)
A.G. Patil Polytechnic Institute
Diploma, Computer Engineering (Published research paper on “Analytics of Student Database” - DOI: 10.15680/IJIRCCE.2022.1004113)
Invited for Stanford University PhD research volunteer on AI coding tools & OSS collaboration
GSoC 2025 Fellow turned contract dev at Internet Archive
Founder of ZON Format — 50% LLM token reduction vs JSON
Impacted 11M+ users via Open Library
Projects (4)
ZON: Zero-Overhead Notation Format
ZON (Zero-Overhead Notation) is a data serialization format designed to minimize token usage when working with LLMs. It reduces token consumption by approximately 50% compared to JSON while maintaining human readability and lossless data representation. Features include schema support, streaming, validation, and type coercion. Available as Python and TypeScript libraries with over 99% retrieval accuracy. Powers cost-effective GenAI applications and is gaining adoption with growing stars and downloads.
Lenny-app: Sandbox & Documentation for Lenny
Lenny-app is a sandbox prototype and documentation website for the Lenny lending system. It allows users and admins to interact with Lenny, try out the system with demo e-books powered by OPDS, and provides a landing page and documentation for developers. Built with TurboRepo (Monorepo), TypeScript, React.js, Next.js, Node.js, Express.js, and Docker, it supports both development and production modes. Lenny-app is designed to be future-proof, enabling easy integration, open-source contributions, and a great user experience.
PRS: Internet Archive’s Public Readium Service
PRS (Public Readium Service) is an internal project at Internet Archive to support Readium Manifest CLI and Thorium web reader integration. Contributed support for Readium Manifest CLI 0.4.0 and added Thorium web support. PRS enables secure, global lending of e-books via OPDS feeds and is designed to work with Lenny and other digital library systems.
Lenny: Open Source Lending System for Libraries (ArchiveLabs)
All around the world, "Little Free Libraries®" have been popping up on street corners and improving peoples’ lives, built on a simple principle: take a book, share a book. As our lives and books become digital, we’re losing the freedoms of ownership that make Little Free Libraries possible. Lenny is a new open-source, free, plug-and-play project that lets anyone, anywhere – libraries, archives, individuals – set up their own digital lending library online. \n Lenny is designed to be frictionless, affordable, and easy to adopt, enabling individuals and libraries to have their own public digital libraries.
As a GSoC 2025 Fellow at Internet Archive, I co-built Lenny from scratch, responsible for backend architecture, deployment, and API design. Collaborating with ArchiveLabs and the Internet Archive community, including Michael E. Karpeles (Mek).
Lenny is our answer to the vision of pioneers like Aaron Swartz: access to information is a right, not a privilege. Building Lenny strengthens the open source ecosystem and helps create a decentralized, global library for the future.
Learn more at lennyforlibraries.org and GitHub.